Export hat-trick for
city clean fuel firm

Energy storage and clean fuel company ITM Power has achieved a major breakthrough in Germany.

The Sheffield-based company beat German competitors to win a contract with Thüga Group, the largest network of energy companies in Germany.

ITM’s technology allows electricity generated from wind and wave power to be stored by using it to generate hydrogen by passing a current through water.

The deal with Thüga involves ITM supplying a 360kW Power-to-Gas energy storage plant, which will be used to generate hydrogen from renewable sources and inject it directly into the gas mains serving the German financial capital of Frankfurt.

It is ITM Power’s first major commercial sale in Germany of a large hydrogen production unit and will produce 125kg of hydrogen gas a day.

Beating German competitors on price and efficiency in their own market will be seen as a real feather in Brightside-based ITM Power’s cap.

It also answers criticisms of those who dismiss wind power, in particular, because of its intermittent availability and the fact that winds may blow when the electricity isn’t needed

Chief executive Dr Graham Cooley said: “Harvesting the maximum energy generated by intermittent and varying renewable energy sources is still seen as the holy grail in the power generation and distribution industry.

“We have the technology to achieve this today. The company is looking forward to deploying its technology further in the forward thinking German market.”

Dr Peter Birkner, director of Mainova AG, which will be hosting the ITM plant, added: “We are now exploring all aspects of harnessing intermittent renewable energy and it is essential that we can harness all of the renewable energy that we generate.

“ITM Power’s technology will be a key part of the systems that we need to achieve our goals.”

ITM’s German success comes hard on the heels of recent successes in Japan and Russia.

The company recently made the first sales of its Hpac hydrogen generators to two organisations which have not been named but are understood to be significant and well known, for use in research and industrial applications.